..to not understand how people keep their DC's toys pristine, with all the bits and generally pass onable

[idiuntno57]

With x4 DC I appreciate that toys get a bit of a bashing in our house.

But even when they are new within minutes they've been deconstructed, turned into a different game, been sat on, sucked up by the hoover etc. etc.

I have friends who appear to be able to sell toys their kids have grown out of on eBay. Despite spending my life rebuilding Tracey Island, going through the hoover bag for bits of playmobil and putting the coins back in the toy till I doubt I'd get takers on freecycle.

AIBU to think that actually they just wave the toys in front of their kids, wrap them back up and then pop them in a cupboard so they can stay nice?

Dd1 never lost or broken anything.

Dd2 is a wrecking ball and I've given up.

(And I have a tidy pants drawer.)

Op, yanbu. I have 4 dc too, the big difference to a classroom is that the teacher usually has 4-5 year olds at a minimum, a TA and so an adult is always in the room. Anyone with 4 dc has to leave the room to cook tea, put washing on, sort out a dc on the toilet, dc may not all be in same room. That's what goes wrong. All very well these lovely ideas of rotating toys, one toy out one toy in. Goes to pot with 4 under 5! Simple maths should tell you there that more dc = more toys to keep track of! More dc, less time to spend on rearranging toys in boxes every night.
My kids do know they shouldn't wreck toys but they are all experimenters so want to mix up the playmobil and Lego and they are left unsupervised some of the time. When dp and I feel they've overstepped the mark, out comes the black bin bag! That usually does it. I'm trying to pack up stuff for charity, can I find all the bits? Hah.

Sorry YANBU. it depends on the kids.

I'd really like everything in the cupboard in neat piles but apparently they have to play with stuff.

Sigh.

We have a DD with a rampant imagination too. Sylvanians are sent into space in DSs happy land rocket (best place for them IMHO)... Babies are fed dinner on plates made of sturdy books. Barbies scoot around in cars made from my slippers......

I do try (pathetically) to rotate a few toys in the couple of boxes we have downstairs for 2 year old DS. Otherwise he gets bored and starts playing with the fire poker/crockery/my handbag contents/pet fish as an alternative.

However the one thing I do really try to do it keep puzzles/jigsaws/board games intact. Have a few of the orchard puzzles and games, and some jollyphonics ones, and they just don't work with bits missing, so the 'rule' with those is 'don't let your brother mess with them' and 'one at a time'...

I don't really get this 'put one thing away before something else comes out'. All my dds combine toys in some elaborate imaginery make-believe thing. I don't think they'd be happy if Polly Pockets couldn't go on a train ride.

I'm totally with U on this and have often wondered it too! All toys get dismantled spread around the house and hoovered up in my house!! I bought my youngest a ball popper toy and my 4 year old ds did a wee down the shoot in the first half an hour!!!

itis more creative to mix and match bits of toys

Yes, get a toy out, sit playing nicely with it for a while, pack it all away including all the small bits, get something else out, repeat etc...

That's not how children play!

Currently on the floor in front of me I can see:
3 books
11 toy cars
A Lego Star Wars battle in full swing
A DS with a dead Lego Star Wars Clone on top
2 mini footballs
Some felt-tips
A large toy sword
Some pink play shoes
A box of Bakugan
A wallet
6 Lego instruction booklets
Some Happy Meal toys
A couple of hairbands

But ... toys do not tend to get damaged or lost. Every week or two we'll gather the toys up and put them back in their respective boxes. I like being organised and tidy so there's a dedicated place for everything. We have an endless supply of really useful boxes - for the beads, the bakugan, the moshlings, the gogos, the polly pockets. Even a dedicated box for the Lego instruction booklets. So when I tidy up I just put the stuff back in the plastic box where it belongs. Simple!

Dancergirl - plenty of children do play like that. OK mine have more than one toy out at a time, and soetimes for several days at a time, but they know to put them away when they've finished and to make sure they find all the little bits or they'll get lost.

How do people manage to suck up toys in the hoover? Surely you see what's in front of you before you push the hoover in that direction, or hear when something's been sucked up and retrieve it?

My ds's toys mostly stayed in the condition they started in, so most of them got passed on. Toys that were second hand and in imperfect condition were mostly in the same condition when he outgrew them. He has ASD and was slow to outgrow toys, only starting to when he was around 14, so they had years of use. It was mostly when other dc visited that toys got broken. I don't think he took any special care of them, he just played with them. Remote control cars tended to stop working and then get used as cars without the remote control.

If toys are constantly getting vacuumed up, maybe you just need to check more carefully...or vacuum less often. I still remember the day I realised I'd just hoovered up a little pile of levers for lego cars...

YABU.

It isn't about being able to sell them on later, if they're broken or missing bits then your DC don't get to play with them, or don't get to have as much fun out of them.

Trashing your stuff vs looking after them a bit. No contest really.

We are just about to have a drastic sort and clear out of toys.

I am totally with you. I have toys chests upstairs that have a handful of lego, couple of blocks, odd cars, odd jigsaw pieces, various arty things, various bits of tat (such as maccy d toys), parts of toys...a post office set with no stationary to be found, a connect 4 game with half the tokens missing.

And so on. No toys with bits would ever be in a complete enough state to pass on from my house.

We probably have 99% of the playmobile somewhere in the house as I'm not a great one for hoovering .
But I haven't got the boxes.

Our Lego is a real hotchpotch of new and old and no way makes any saleable sets.

The thing that is probably saleable is the wooden train track. Mixed brands, but there is loads.

I think this is more to do with the kids personalities rather than the parents parenting skills. My DCs have always played nicely with their toys. They are not the type to throw things about or break things. None of them went into cupboards either. I used to think they were a bit odd but it is just their personalities. They could be rambunctious and boisterous but it didn't involve their toys.

They are young adults now so I have given away all their toys apart from a few and there were wooden puzzles and board games that were worn through years of play that still had all their pieces.

One of the very few toys I kept was a wooden puzzle with the states of the USA - it's nearly 20 years old but still complete even Rhode Island is there. It's a bit banged up and chipped but that's to be expected.
They are still careful with their possessions and keep their Uni rooms very tidy they don't get in from me

I always wondered this with my twin boys but my daughter is much more gentle on toys. When I was young I kept my toys immaculate.

My kids toy cupboard would be so much nicer if I didn't have kids!

I posted earlier about my ds being careful with his toys.

• If they get sold on it's at his request and he keeps the money for a new toy.
• He does play imaginatively mixing sets up, but he then likes to put them back in their place/ the right toy box.
• He also loves drawing and painting and "inventing".

I guess we are both naturally organised people in some ways, but no, we do not both have lovely tidy sock drawers.

I am teaching my children to look after their possessions as they are not free and they are not allowed to trash them.

They get to play with them, like normal children but they would not be allowed to just throw them about/take them apart and generally ruin them.

When they have finished with something, it goes away properly. DS keeps all his playmobil stuff together. I have found that other children are less careful with things like that and I don't really like it when they come over and just tip all the playmobil out everywhere and spread it around unnecessarily which is how things get lost. They can still play without this needless 'trashing' and generally not looking after their things. Luckily both children are very good with their possessions.

I know so many adults who are incapable of looking after their stuff properly, always losing or breaking expensive things. Its not difficult to look after something and I hope I am teaching my children that they should take care of their things.

My son is very good at 'tidy up time' - something he has learned from Nursery, and we have quite an efficient system for keeping toys contained but I still like the idea that he can properly play with his toys and be rough with them if he likes. I can't imagine stepping in every time he does something rough with a toy.